Bureaucrat's Errors Mean closure for Manly Dam

here - http://nobmob.com/node/13151

It's confusing with so many threads on this topic!

I sent the e-mail below to all councillors. I have had 4 responses distancing themselves from the decision and offering support and one suggesting that they have found a solution to the problem. Hopefully the situation will be resolved at the 23 Feb meeting.

Dear Councillors

Below is am email response from Councillor Dr Helen Wilkins in which she states. Council is potentially liable for any injuries that might be incurred as a result of the very narrow sections of bike track being shared by bikes and pedestrians.

A simple solution to the problem is to close the trail to pedestrians rather than mountain bikers. Mountain bikers are the main users of the trail a conservative estimate of usage would be 95% mountain bikers and 5% walkers. There are already many walking only tracks available at Manly Dam and on the other side of the Wakehurst Parkway in the National Park. Mountain bikers have attempted to engage council over the years to gain legal access to areas to try and help reduce the number of illegal trails and use the land responsibly and with the minimum of impact on the environment. I am concerned that the goodwill from both the council and the mountain bike community will be destroyed by this decision which appears to have been made on the assumption that something may happen and affects the majority not the minority of trail users.

That's an awesome little video and great promo piece for The Dam to boot.

Seriously, does anyone know and ride with him?

That article about Rik Hart backing the ban on the basis of his own, the Mayor's and a few other senior council employee's opinions on what's safe typifies a major problem at hand; http://manly-daily.whereilive.com.au/news/story/...

Today I contacted AMB about the issue, and the council's idea that the trail is unsafe. Their National Director Nicholas Bowman may be able to organise the trail to be looked at by some people who know what they're looking at. Hopefully this will be done in time to make a submission for the Feb 23rd meeting. They would take an experienced look at the trail from an MTB'ers and a shared-use perspective.

In the meantime, maybe we could get Rik and Mike on some bikes with the assistance of any number of the 6 accredited MTB guides that just graduated from Northern Beaches TAFE College's new Outdoor Recreation course in Brookvale (which they offered here partly due to the proximity of Manly Dam)? We could at least demostrate the standard practice technique of "if you can't ride it, get off and push...it will still be there tomorrow (...we hope)".

I've also contacted certain sports celebrities that live in the area and won't mention any names but we may well be able to get some to attend the ride on the 6th.

Their primary reason for closing this section of track is for safety!!? Wheres the evidence of any safety breeches? , their isn't any. Gotta love bureaucracy, its truly taken madness to another dimension. We should close all the roads for vehicles traffic, the incidence of death is clearly eminent and they have the stats to justify it. Soon they will be closing the tracks to walkers, after all the possibility of a sprained ankle is a high risk.

On another note, they also talk of erosion in other anti mtb forums. Erosion is caused by traffic weather that be animal, man made or vehicle. The tracks open pathways for rain to flow and in turn then the rain causes the v shaped ruts and other erosion's. The kokoda track for example has massive erosion. In parts ropes are used and needed to get through several sections...all caused by walkers. There's only one way to keep everyone happy. That's to keep these great communal tracks open, encouraging a healthy and fit lifestyle for all people whether walkers or riders. We as a culture should be well pleased that people are getting into the outdoors and getting out from behind their desks and lazy lifestyles. Such low output lifestyles lead to disease of the heart and the mind. Lets embrace and encourage lifestyles that get people out into the wild and into life..."Life be in it!" Comon Australia, lets not fall into sedentary madness, are we truly falling to this level!

Instead of hindering, lets encourage it, lets find more ways to get people out and enjoying a lifestyle that's conducive to this country's well being. Lets expand our minds and our hearts and choose to be a life participant. Only one little mans opinion of course.

Just received this morning,

"Dear Scott,

Thank you for taking the time to write.

I can assure you that I am opposed to the closure of the track and also any suggested closure to hikers. My preferred solution would have been to allow the current use to continue with additional warning signs and disclaimers, whilst a new solution - preferably a separate track for hikers along the golf course - is constructed with the help of volunteers.

The decision to close the track was NOT made by the elected council, but was a staff decision with support from the General Manager and the mayor (see original press release). We other councillors were not allowed to be involved in the decision.

We had a staff report with 4 options announced for the 23rd February and staff suggested some 'proposed current actions', including the closure, but we were not involved in deciding if the 'proposed' actions should be implemented.

Council had - against my opposition - voted for a reduction in meeting cycle (see meeting minutes), which resulted in the report coming to council only on the 23rd March.

But Virginia and myself have a Notice of Motion that was part of the agenda at the last meeting, which went over time, and which will come to an extraordinary meeting on the 23rd of February. The NoN is asking for a re-establishment of the volunteer program under supervision. As part of this motion, Virginia will be moving an addition that will reopen the track and provide a more adequate solution.

Your excellent campaign has helped to sway the mayor and we assume that we have the numbers to get the NoM through. Congratulations!"

Regards,

Christina

PS: Virginia and myself are trying to get the Ride2school program (see google) up in Warringah for a ride to school day on 17th March in order to encourage more kids and parents to cycle to school - your support would be appreciated!

Thanks for posting all the email address' Rob.

On line least of all. Sorry.

Unfortunately they only count as one letter. Better to write a separate email in your own words, and encourage others to do the same.

However, your setting up a site of some kind to publicise the issue is welcome.

May I make a suggestion? To prevent a proliferation of data sources and things getting out of control (y'know, like Chinese whispers 'n' all) and confused messages based on misinformation hurting our cause, if you're going to set up any website I suspect it would be better to point people here with a link to get the most current info.

This site is going to be the most current and accurate information source, as a number of us are dealing directly with Councillors and live in the area. We are updating with information as it comes to hand.

I have just sent the following to all above email addresses including Rik Hart
Also physically posting to some that did not supply or have publicly accessible email addresses(fair enough) but kindly supplied their actual postal address.

To whom it may concern,

Respectfully, I must say the closure of the only single trail available to most of Sydney’s mountain bikers came as both a shock and a disappointment to me, when locally, hundreds(or more) designated walking trails exist for walkers to enjoy, even within the dam itself.

I understand The Council and lawyers safety concerns, although I do not agree with them, neither have I ever seen or heard any evidence of any safety incidents. Respectfully, is there any written evidence of any safety incidents? If so please send back on your return email.

The recent closure, although I’m sure it won’t be for long, troubles me especially so since Mountain Bikers are by far the majority on the manly dam circuit.

Even though we as mountain bikers actively encourage a multi use trail and have done so successfully at Manly Dam, without serious incident for the past 20 years, I believe the logical choice should have been:

Consult with majority user group
Temporarily stop walkers on the section under scrutiny, since mountain bikers are by far the majority user group.
Council insert a new sentence into POM and also sort out any other legal issues,
Install new signage as per http://www.imba.com/resources/bike_management/in... Example: Local Skate Park signage (this would be achieved an very little cost to council due to hundreds of mountain bike volunteers ready)
Once signage is up, inform walkers they can use the mountain bike track if they wish, but please give way to the majority user group.
Work along with mountain bikers and let them maintain the trail to IMBA standards found here http://www.imba.com/resources/trail_building/ or here http://www.imba.com/resources/trail_building/tra...

Below is a little more to the solution to your problem

Walkers have many varied opportunities when it comes to walking trails. On the other hand 1000’s of local bikers now have no single trail to ride on.

With the Manly Dam, I feel the most logical solution would be to allow walkers on "The designated Mountain Bike Trail" but all the signage is "walkers, please give way to bikers, bikers please be mindfully of all other users"

So in effect mountain biker’s policy would be: We don’t mind if walkers come onto the designated mountain bike trail. We are the majority user group so we have right of way on the designated mountain bike trail, but we will also respect the safety of all other users at all times. Side note: trails in other areas with equal user group usage could have a 50/50 right of way or bikers give way to walkers.

Signage could also encourage/suggest walkers to stick to, or enjoy the plethora of other alternate designated walker only trails nearby, or continue onto the mountain bike trail as usual with full knowledge that mountain bikers frequent it and to give way to them.

The more i think about it, the more i keep coming back to this solution, also considering success in NZ, Canada and so on with similar systems.

Please let me know your honest unbiased thoughts and reasons, both for, or against.

P.S I am both a local resident of [address supplied] and an active member of northern beaches mountain bike group www.nobmob.com

Keep an eye out in the Council section of the Manly Daily.
At some stage in the near future they will be asking for submissions of interest on Manly Dam's
Mountain Bike track.
We must all put in submissions to this as it counts heavily.
I think it needs to be in writing... snail mail (not sure though).

Dear Tim,

Please note, the tracks' closure was the decision of council staff and didn't come to council for resolution, though we have to fix the problem that way, following cyclists' understandable outrage.

I agree with you that the tracks should reopen immediately. I will put an urgency motion up on Tuesday night at the council meeting that I hope will receive support.

Thanks for taking the time to send your concerns. It is appreciated. FYI, the email tally is around 320 now - all objections.

Regards,

Virginia Laugesen
Councillor for C Ward
9400 3299
0437 499 959

on here when it comes to submission talent, there has been top class submissions made in the past from this site, when it gets closer to submission time, I'm sure we will hear and see more

The campaign we are currently doing, has been nothing short of amazing!. It shows what we can achieve when it really counts.
Although it is important that everyone uses their imagination and experience it is also important that we are on the same page and not submitting conflicting submissions, rather they should try to be based the general consensus of this site and IMBA trail building guidelines found at www.imba.com

Received this in a reply from a Warringah councillor today:

"Moving forward, after much researching and communicating, it looks as though we may have found a way to reverse this decision at the Council meeting on the 23rd of February in favour of all mountain bikers."

Lets hope so...